PASADENA, Calif. — You can take the boy out of Canada, but you can’t take Canada out of the boy.
At least that little bromide has proved right for Eric McCormack.

The star of
Will & Grace knows what it is to be a household name, but he never let it go to his
head.

The difference, he guessed, might be his Canadian roots.

“It’s bred in us: ‘Don’t get too big for your britches. Anybody can do what you do. Don’t think
you’re all that!’ It’s just in our culture,” he said.

In fact, McCormack is one actor who sometimes disqualifies himself for a role.“When you’re a
theater actor, you think you can play anything,” he said. “But when you go to some television or
film auditions, you realize there’s somebody better for that than me.”

In his latest role on the TNT series
Perception, McCormack plays a schizophrenic neuroscientist who helps the police solve
complex cases. “My only hesitation about this part was: I don’t want the press to go, ‘Here we go —
(sigh) another crime drama.’ I wanted to make sure that the characters were at the forefront, that
the writers had a long-term plan for how the character was going to remain interesting.”

In spite of his familiar face, McCormack, 49, still does his own grocery shopping and has been
married to the same woman for 15 years. He’s the father of a 9-year-old son who loves
basketball.

McCormack also has another job. He is playing the villain in
The Best Man on Broadway. To do that was a sacrifice for his family, he said.

“It always comes down to the family. It’s just not convenient at all for the family, so it’s got
to be something that absolutely I cannot say no to. “And a short run.”